A British sharia council was given credibility by the High Court when a judge used one of its fatwas to decide a case.

The Islamic Council, founded by the hardline preacher Haitham al-Haddad, issued a religious ruling forbidding a health trust from allowing a brain-damaged child to die. Secular campaigners said using fatwas in civil courts undermined liberal democracy.

An investigation by The Times this week found that Britain is the western capital for sharia councils, also known as sharia courts. Haddad founded the Islamic Council, which handles 900 cases a year and has expanded into Germany and North America. He chairs its fatwa (a ruling on Islamic law given by a recognised authority) committee.

Haddad’s sharia council issued a fatwa which was used by an English judge in a life-or-death decision involving a sick child. Tafida Raqeeb, then five, was suffering from brain damage with no chance of recovery and was facing withdrawal of treatment by Barts Health NHS Trust in London which would have led to her death.

Her Bangladeshi parents obtained a fatwa from the Islamic Council of Europe, as it was then called, in 2019 that it was “absolutely impermissible for the parents, or anyone else, to give consent for the removal of the life-supporting machine from their child … This is seen as a great sin that has a multitude of grave consequences for them [in] this life and the hereafter.”Mr Justice Macdonald said in the High Court he had the benefit from the parents of “a fatwa from the Islamic Council of Europe”. The judge observed that prolonging treatment “permits Tafida to remain alive in accordance with the tenets of the religion in which she was being raised and for which she had begun to demonstrate a basic affinity”.Raqeeb was flown to Italy and has been treated in a Vatican-owned hospital.Stephen Evans, the chief executive officer of the National Secular Society, said: “Fatwas issued by Islamic councils must not hold any authority in English courts. Allowing harmful ideologies to gain legitimacy in our legal framework would fundamentally compromise secular law and the liberal democratic values upon which UK society is built.”Shelina Begum and Mohammed Raqeeb, who won a ruling on whether treatment should be stopped for their five-year-old daughterKIRSTY O’CONNOR/PAHaddad’s council describes its role regarding Raqeeb as a “landmark case” involving “High Court guidance”. Haddad said the issue “was one of deep ethical and religious concern. The fatwa issued by Islamic Council was based on the sanctity of life, a fundamental principle in Islam. The advice provided sought to protect the child’s life while respecting the family’s wishes, consistent with Islamic ethics and compassion”.The judgement caused unease at the time with Rahila Gupta, the feminist writer, querying whether religious parents were being privileged. “Would the case of a secular family, similarly arguing for the extension of a child’s life, be weaker?” she wrote. Haddad’s views on women were branded misogynistic by Dame Sara Khan when she was the counter-extremism commissioner.The main role of sharia councils is to rule on requests for Islamic divorces by women whose husbands refuse to end their religious marriages. Men in Islam can divorce at will.• ‘I feel like I have to pay ransom to get out of my marriage’Haddad visited the Taliban in Afghanistan last year, meeting Khalid Hanafi, the acting minister for propagating virtue and preventing vice. Hanafi has since been sanctioned by the United States over his record on women’s rights and he also faces sanctions from the European Union. Haddad said he was on a fact-finding visit to Afghanistan to promote peace.Haitham al-Haddad, left, with Khalid Hanafi, rightHaddad’s council has approved a sharia will-writing app aimed at Muslims in England and Wales which has a dropdown menu asking men how many wives they have, with options ranging up to four. Other Sharia councils said men can end their marriages instantly by saying “divorce” three times or asked women on their divorce application forms for the date of their last period.Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Tell Mama, an organisation to protect Muslims from hate crimes, reacted to The Times investigation by calling for sharia councils to be scrapped. “Sharia councils are composed mainly of men over the age of 50 who have very little relevance and understanding of modern life,” Mughal, who also founded the campaign groups Faith Matters and Muslims Against Antisemitism, said.“Their interpretations of Islamic law and their desire to keep couples together even when there are serious problems in the relationship, do not recognise the safeguarding of women. Women come off second best and in my opinion, these sharia councils should have no space in our country. They belong in medieval times and we should actively discard them to that era.”Dr Paul Stott, the head of security and extremism at the Policy Exchange think tank, reacted to the investigation saying: “The UK is failing to uphold the law when it comes to polygamy. That must change.” He said there were clear problems in terms of the fairness and legitimacy of sharia courts.